The Lower Grades had a fun first week in our new classroom space, the Dome. It fits perfectly with our class energy! The compostable toilet was easily embraced and everyone quickly and happily settled in. Thank you all for sending your children with rubber-soled slippers. It makes getting from our backpack shed to the Dome an easy transition. We are able to leave our gear in the shed over the weekend which is a nice bonus. If you want everything to come home on Fridays, please let me know and I will do my best to help make that happen. Same with having items left at school. Please add rain pants if you haven’t done so already. 😊
This past week we made our first readers. (If you read last week’s Monday Messenger it mentioned word families, but I changed that 😉.) The readers were based on a story we shared in class, The Prince Who Could Not Read. Each day, we wrote a sentence and drew an illustration for various parts of the story and re-read our pages many times. We worked on our copywork (neatness, correct letter formation, spacing), sight words (underlined in red) and sentence structure. On our last illustrations we started adding in some background details in our pictures as well. For students learning to read, pointing along with each word as they read is an important skill, along with sounding out simple words. Please make sure the readers are all returned to school as we will continue to use them. Next week, we will make a second reader based on a new story. Students who are currently readers will be working on a book based on short stories and writing simple summaries.
In Math, we are continuing to work on place value, building various numbers through 99 using our beads and tens “sticks”. Students are building individual numbers or working on adding and subtracting single and double-digit numbers based on their needs. In Modeling, we formed our clay balls into paddies, then into five-pointed stars and finally into a human figure (five points = two arms, two legs and a head). In wet-on-wet painting, we painted rainbows, working on a specific brush stroke and blending colors. The students enjoyed Music class with Ki Kathee, Yoga with Ki Nina, Games with Ki Nnamdi and Foreign Language with both Ki Serina and Don Andres. In Handwork, we are learning with Ki Andrew and Ki Ieva and working on our knitting skills. Students new to knitting are finger knitting and enjoying the process immensely. They will transition to knitting with needles during the school year.
Warmly,
Ki Melissa
